The Influence of Culture on Health

Strategies to reduce/eliminate health disparities must reflect the importance of culture.

How Do Cultural Beliefs Impact Health Disparities?

What Dominant Factor Contributes to Less than Satisfactory Healthcare Outcomes?

How do these Connect to Cultural Competencies and Impact Outcomes?

Distrust and Health Status

“Relative to healthier persons, those patients with the poorest health have more frequent and diverse interactions with the healthcare system and more negative experiences which lead to negative attitudes about healthcare and underlies their distrust of that system.

Their providers experience the frustrations in providing high-quality care to medically complex patients in a fragmented system.

Distrust by the sickest and most medically vulnerable patients may be a marker for a healthcare system ill-equipped to provide for their needs.”

Dr. Crista Johnson, M.D., FACOG Maricopa Integrated Health System

Culture

Is the myriad ways of perceiving and organizing the world that are held in common by a group of people and passed on interpersonally and inter generationally. Culture has both material and symbolic aspects, including a common code or language, heritage, history, social organization, institutions, norms, knowledge, attitudes, values, beliefs, stories, objects, and patterns of perceptions expressed in verbal and non verbal interaction styles..